BIRMINGHAM BUTTONS YOU UP

Evening Star, Issue 23323, 20 July 1939, Page 16

BIRMINGHAM BUTTONS YOU UP

CITY THAT SHOWERS BUTTONS ON AIL THE WORLD

(From a Woman Correspondent.)

Hoiv many women, when they discard a coat or dress, ever think of retaining its buttons, which are probably as good ns new? Not many. Most of us feel that a new garment deserves new buttons. ,

So it is that in Birmingham, England, which from time immemorial has been the home of button-making, even a comparatively small firm can continue to turn out 2,000 gross of buttons a day to be scattered to all corners of the world. The Government is one of the biggest buyers, with its contracts for the fighting forces, Post Office workers, and so on. Birmingham buttons, however, are still in general demand, despite the fact that Birmingham men have been to many different countries to show other nations how to make their own buttons, THEY COME FROM MILK AND BUTCHERS’ BONES. Button-making is very much a family affair. Businesses are handed down from father to son, and son to grandson; one Birmingham firm claims an unbroken succession from the year 1600. It is also said that those engaged in the business do not so much learn it, as obtain their knowledge as a matter of heredity. The children of manufacturers play with the buttons before they get any other toys :> at one time it was quite usual for a Birmingham man to be called a “ Brummagem Button.” Buttons have, indeed, a romance all of their own, but they have become too much a commonplace of everyday life for anyone to be aware of it. There is fascination in the very material from which they are made. Horns and hoofs of cattle brought from all parts of the world and piled high in sacks seem to be an unpromising start for the real horn buttons, which are produced in a wide variety of natural colours and exquisite patterns. Flat sheets of casein—a milk composition—arrive in a big rang© of colours to be transformed into some of the most popular modern buttons. Bones, sometimes fresh from the butcher and awaiting to undergo preliminary processes of sterilising and degreasing, at others already prepared, are the start of many cheap buttons. Then there is the vegetable ivory made from the South American corozo nut, wood, metal, and—in the more luxurious types—ivory and mother-o’-pearl. The making of the latter has always been a business of its own, and at one time a colony of nearly 300 firms engaged solely in making pearl buttons was situated in a comparatively small area in Birmingham; now only about half a dozen remain. Although only the best shirtmakers in England are uoav using English pearl buttons women’s fashions change so rapidly that firms outside Great Britain cannot hope to deliver their goods in time to fulfil the orders. HEREDITARY BUTTON MAKERS. The history of button-making is one of constant progress and striving after novelty. Buttons covered in velvet and silk were succeeded by the discovery of linen buttons. , When pearl buttons were at the height of their popularity there were thousands of tips in Birmingham where the waste from the shells was thrown.

Vegetable ivory, bone, and wood came in their turn. Porcelain buttons were invented in England, although they are made 'elsewhere. The inventor of papier mache took out a patent in 1778for making buttons from this material. The former craftsmanship which characterised the making of buttons has not been lost altogether, for, although the past 30 or 40 years have seen certain improvements in the machinery used, the fundamentals of the process remain unchanged, and the wonders of, modern science can do little or nothing to improve the process or replace the workers’ necessary knowledge. Whatever the material, the process is much the same. If the material is not flat to begin with, it has to be made so for the Imtton discs to be cut from it. For instance, the horns and hoofs supplied to a leading manufacturer of real horn buttons are cut into two by machinery, then subdivided, and these smaller pieces are placed in presses and subjected to a pressure of one ton. After this they are ready for the usual three steps : the discs being stamped out by machinery, the tops being shaped on ■ another machine, and finally either for a shank being fitted to the back of the button or holes being pierced in the middle. Button-making seems to have become an established industry in Birmingham during the seventeenth century. Countless small firms sprang up, for Birmingham people are notoriously independent and prefer to earn a little for themselves than a lot working for a master. But even this stronghold of individualism and family interest could not wholly resist the encroachment of modern business methods, and the year 1907 saw the amalgamation of many small firms into one big concern. Even so, tradition persists, and there are still firms where the workers are the direct descendants of those who were employed there in the early days. |